Steven Wilson begging in Facebook

Well I've paid for both the Blu Ray version and the CD version. It is a brilliant album and I have no regret on that score. What I hope is that all the people who have downloaded it and not bought it can honestly say they can't afford to purchase it. If that's the case then its perfectly forgiveable in my eyes and no different to someone being given a copy by a friend in all truth.

infandous wrote: Dean wrote: Any musicians out there reading this can chip in and correct me if I am wrong, but it is fair to say that every artist in Progressive Rock Music today has a day-job that finances his Prog - If I am not mistaken every Prog Musician is part-time. Well, there are quite a few that are full time in music.....by having multiple projects (Roine Stolt, for example), having their own studio (Karl Groom, Neal Morse, others), or working in various musical endeavors as writers, session men, etc.  Or, like Andy Tillison, simply dirt poor trying to make prog music their sole income stream.

Sure, but they are still a day-jobs that are necessary to pay the bills. Rest assured these guys are not rich by any stretch of the imagination. And they are in the top eschelon, below them are hundreds of Prog musicians who do not make a living from music.

Dean wrote: Any musicians out there reading this can chip in and correct me if I am wrong, but it is fair to say that every artist in Progressive Rock Music today has a day-job that finances his Prog - If I am not mistaken every Prog Musician is part-time.

Well, there are quite a few that are full time in music.....by having multiple projects (Roine Stolt, for example), having their own studio (Karl Groom, Neal Morse, others), or working in various musical endeavors as writers, session men, etc.  Or, like Andy Tillison, simply dirt poor trying to make prog music their sole income stream.


Edited by infandous - February 25 2013 at 13:29

It's very intriguing; the same technology that makes music theft easy should potentially be able to make it difficult.   Identity fraud happens but still hasn't been so rampant as to make ecommerce untenable.  On the other hand, more and more people are hopping onto that bandwagon and prefer shopping online.   It's now what 15 years or so since internet piracy began to hurt the industry.   Why, after so many years, have they still been unable to find a way to protect their work from it?  And why not Hollywood, which is more powerful, more moneyed?  Or could it be that Hollywood makes money anyway and doesn't really care which leaves the labels to fend for themselves?  I think Itunes presented a good opportunity to permanently move to a secure file format while still giving portability to the users but the industry missed the bus there.   They really should have forced other device makers to likewise offer secure formats for transfer of music files to the device, rather than conversion to mp3.

Finnforest wrote: There's no debate here, no grey area.  You can either steal someone's work, then try 20 different angles to justify your thievery, or, you save your money and purchase your stuff at the offered price.  One choice is right, one borders on a****le territory.  And if you think otherwise, then you'll be perfectly accepting and happy when someone steals something of value from you, from your home, your car,  your computer. If you agree you wouldn't mind being ripped off, then I can at least give you points for consistency.  Because, hey, that guy who took your Ipod  couldn't afford to buy one!  Should he be denied the ability to have one?

I think you're missing a point here. Any time an artist records and releases a CD, he does so knowing that there are going to be thousands of illegal downloads. Any artist who doesn't think it can/will happen would be have to be pretty naive. It would be much more comparable to going into the grocery store and leaving your car windows down with a computer or ipod sitting in plain sight. You'd be a fool to think it would be safe. I'm not saying that it's the musicians' fault, more that these are very unfortunate circumstances we live in, because unlike the grocer, musicians don't have the option of rolling the windows up.

Any musicians out there reading this can chip in and correct me if I am wrong, but it is fair to say that every artist in Progressive Rock Music today has a day-job that finances his Prog - If I am not mistaken every Prog Musician is part-time.

I remember this really hit home to me, seeing how pirating effects prog musicians:

From an interview The Tangent's Andy Tillison:

Andy: "Going off on Two' was (to us at least) one of the highlights of the band's career. Toughest of all was the fact that this "Fan Release" – pre-financed by our most fantastic supporters, was leaked onto the internet within a day of first delivery and sales just stopped – that day. The pirate site hosting it reported over 500 downloads in two days and we "charted" at number 14 for illegal downloads that week, Lady Gaga taking the number one slot. For us, that was a catastrophe that led to cancelled gigs, and ultimately members of the band finally giving up hope of ever seeing reward for their efforts. Jonathan left the band recently, disillusioned by the way everyone seems to be OK with the whole download culture."

i think part of the decrease in music sales is precisely because people download.  to some extent this has cause lost revenue, but also burst the music bubble.  CD prices never went down, we bought CDs for one song etc.  now people can download or listen to music before buying it...as a result, some stuff just isn't going to get bought.  my sense is that most of the downloading is for pop artists by teens who don't have the cash to buy a CD or download.  they just get the songs they want from a torrent site or whatever.  at the same time, these pop stars are RICH!  what gives?

Floydian42 wrote: In all honesty, I downloaded the leak. I didn't download it a couple weeks ago, I got it the week after Christmas. And it sounds pretty good! I loved the record and have been sitting on it now for almost two months, gotten my fair share of it and moved on, but I'm a die hard Wilson fan and I bought a hard copy (hasn't arrived yet, but I'm pretty excited). Someone's gotta speak from a downloaders perspective. I'm 21 years old, and I have been born and raised indoctrinated into a download culture. When I was 10 I remember going on napster and getting backstreet boys, going on Limewire when I was 14 or 15, and now I use torrent sites to get my music. Just as there is a certain nostalgia to going into a record store in the 70s and smelling the incense and buying a record and investing your time and money into it, there's a feeling that I think is similar for all of those who download something before it's release. There's that giddy excitement when you see that the files are there, and when you download it and think "I'm one of the first who's going to hear this." I know what you're probably thinking, that giddy feeling is the feeling all thieves have when they get away with stealing, and you're right. Every downloader knows in their hearts that they are stealing. It's just the way the culture is now. Even if I don't buy or download it, a friend of mine will, and he'll upload the CD and send me the tracks. There's so much music out there that for all of it to be appreciated, not all of it can be bought.

In all honesty, I downloaded the leak. I didn't download it a couple weeks ago, I got it the week after Christmas. And it sounds pretty good! I loved the record and have been sitting on it now for almost two months, gotten my fair share of it and moved on, but I'm a die hard Wilson fan and I bought a hard copy (hasn't arrived yet, but I'm pretty excited).

Someone's gotta speak from a downloaders perspective. I'm 21 years old, and I have been born and raised indoctrinated into a download culture. When I was 10 I remember going on napster and getting backstreet boys, going on Limewire when I was 14 or 15, and now I use torrent sites to get my music. Just as there is a certain nostalgia to going into a record store in the 70s and smelling the incense and buying a record and investing your time and money into it, there's a feeling that I think is similar for all of those who download something before it's release. There's that giddy excitement when you see that the files are there, and when you download it and think "I'm one of the first who's going to hear this." I know what you're probably thinking, that giddy feeling is the feeling all thieves have when they get away with stealing, and you're right. Every downloader knows in their hearts that they are stealing.

It's just the way the culture is now. Even if I don't buy or download it, a friend of mine will, and he'll upload the CD and send me the tracks. There's so much music out there that for all of it to be appreciated, not all of it can be bought. Wilson himself is a great example, as most of his music was probably found through filesharing means. This file sharing turned into fans, who went out to his concerts (which makes more money than the records anyway) and a lot of those people became bigger fans who are now willing to buy the CD's.